Unpaid for eight months, Polyclinic technical staff go on strike

Administration says dues cannot be cleared till the court rules on pending cases

ISLAMABAD: Healthcare services at the Federal Government Services Hospital [Polyclinic] were hampered on Saturday after 67 lower grade technicians working in various departments of the hospital went on strike over non-payment of their salaries.

The employees, mostly hired in grade nine, had been inducted in the hospital after clearing written tests and interviews. However, the technicians claimed that the hospital’s administration did not accept their appointments since some other employees who wanted the jobs but had failed to qualify challenged the appointments in court.



However, in August 2016, the Capital Administration and Development Division [CADD] sent them to offer letters. The technicians subsequently reported for their duties. But the officials were not paid.

In January 2017, the court directed the ministry to release their salaries even though cases of some non-diploma holders were still pending before the court after the CADD ministry appealed the decision.

As a result, they had not been paid for the past eight months, said Javaid, one of the protesting technicians. The employees alleged that CADD was not ready to accept them since the division wanted to employ their blue-eyed people.



A hospital official, who did not wish to be named, said that owing to the boycott by the technical staff, work at the facility had been severely affected in various departments of the hospitals especially pharmacies, laboratories and blood bank and the operation theatre.

Polyclinic hospital media coordinator Imtiaz Hasan said that the employees had been hired by the previous government and that they had discovered some irregularities in the hiring procedure hence the matter was currently pending before the court.

Till the matter remains in the court, the division would not be able to clear dues of the employees, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 23^rd, 2017.